Which way will Greece go?

The week starting today may trigger major political developments in Greece. It may change the parameters of the political spectrum as we have known it up until now and bring to the surface new players who would have to face the challenge of the next general elections, which are due in 2016 but are likely to take place later in 2015.

For all intents and purposes, the third and final voting today in the Greek Parliament to elect the successor to President Carolos Papoulias will fail to approve the candidate suggested by the Antonis Samaras coalition government. With a slim majority in Parliament and many independent lawmakers refusing to provide their support to the government, the outcome of today's vote - save a dramatic last-minute change - will lead the country to a snap poll as spelled out in the Constitution.

In an interview with state television last Saturday, Samaras made a dramatic appeal to all members of Parliament that a snap poll may put the country in "fatal peril." And with surprising self-confidence, he added that even if elections could not be avoided, this would suit him because he would be the winner, in the end. Is he out of his mind?

 Maybe not. Actually, he was the one who triggered the whole process in the first place. Claiming that he wanted "clean solutions," he took the political risk of bringing forward the presidential elections due in a few months. He wanted to avoid a further decrease in his government's popularity against a new bout of unpopular measures he had to take, and a further increase of the popularity of his main opponent, the leftist Syriza. However, he could not gather enough support among the other opposition parties and could not change the minds of enough independents to support the government's...